How to give money to adult children who are at different life stages

Personally I cannot imagine leaving my son and daughter different amounts of money.
If you make a gift of money it is for them to make the decision on what they use the money for not yours.
When our son married our daughter was given the same amount of money we gave him.
Years ago my husband was informed by his mother that she was making a will leaving her property to his sister because we had a house. Our house was on mortgage his sister and husband were in the military so traveled around and lived in rented property. When they left they purchased a house for cash, we were still paying our mortgage.

It’s an interesting post. We have one daughter (MsOops) who chooses to live in the middle of nowhere, spends her time on voluntary good causes plus a couple of fairly low paid jobs, and our 2 grandchildren are both doing A levels.
Their house is unheated, damp and they live a very ‘frugal’ life and I know that any large amount of money would be put aside for the childrens education and be spent on her ‘good causes’. £100k wouldn’t be enough to lift them out of the house they are in and into a better one. So if we specified that the money went towards the property it wouldn’t be what they wanted to use it for as they are happy with the way they live and her Idea of good causes wouldn’t be where we wanted our money to go.

Our other daughter (MissOops) has health problems is a carer for her cousin and they are on benefits, they are both unable to work and MissOops is unable to leave our nephew for longer than a couple of hours a day. They rent a property which is fairly isolated, because our Nephew cannot bear to be around other people.
100k would mean MissOops benefits would stop and wouldn’t buy her a 1 bed flat in our area, she can’t move as she needs our moral support and the Health care they both get in our area is very good and might not be so good somewhere else.

I have a good idea about Nursing homes though as MIL was in a fairly pleasant one until she died ( almost 2 years ago ) and that was costing £1450 per week.

One thing for sure is that prices of nursing care won’t go down!

So you will need a very large cushion if you are keeping some money back ‘just in case’ .

In your situation I would be inclined to drip feed the money as and when they need it, which is what we would do, the odd large gift when it is urgently needed might be best.

It’s a nice dilemma to have though.

Grassgreen, what a lovely position to be in. It doesn’t matter what the situation is with the children or what stages in life they are. If I were you, they will get the same amount each.

We’ve helped our sons equally to get onto the property ladder and with bathroom refits. One son has been more resistant so I accept his pride, though it does not sit well with DH. Should the need arise and the request arrive from either son, we’ll help. They know this.
As you can see, OP, this is a complex issue.

You can't control the money you give away as a gift.
I would never treat adult children differently whatever you believe they would do with the money.
DC4 As adult it is their responsibly to find accommodation to live in not yours. You have to allow them to grow up not provide a crutch unless the adult is disabled.
My understanding is you can give £3000 a year away to children.
Larger amounts I believe would be taken into account for Inheritance tax if you die within 7 years.

Think seriously about how the cost of living has shot up in the last year. We have no idea what life will be like 10 or 20 years from now so please speak to a financial advisor before giving away your hard earned cash.
I read somewhere that the average time that offspring take to spend their inheritance is two and a half years.

I would give the money outright to the older DC and put it in trust for the younger ones. You can specify in the trust deed what the money can be used for- eg it can be invested in shares, spent on property etc. You can also allow that DC can receive the income from the trust but not the capital. Worth speaking to a solicitor given the sums involved.

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